Title
Dipatuan vs. Commission on Elections
Case
G.R. No. 86117
Decision Date
May 7, 1990
Two mayoral candidates contested election results in Bacolod Grande, Lanao del Sur, alleging irregularities in voting records. The Supreme Court upheld Comelec's decision, ruling claims of fraud insufficient for pre-proclamation exclusion, directing disputes to election protest.
election returns
manufactured
irregularities

Case Summary (G.R. No. 86117)

Factual Background

Petitioner alleged that during the recanvass on 21 June 1988, he objected to including the election returns from Precincts Nos. 15 and 17, contending that the returns were “spurious and manufactured.” He converted oral objections into written form and submitted certified copies of voting records and voter’s affidavits, as well as affidavits of witnesses.

Petitioner anchored his theory on Section 243(c) of the Omnibus Election Code, asserting that where returns are “obviously manufactured or not authentic,” a pre-proclamation controversy arises that must be resolved before proclamation. He specifically claimed irregularities in the questioned precincts, focusing on: (a) voters appearing in voting lists in alphabetical and chronological order, followed by alleged sudden handwriting by illiterate voters; (b) allowance of voters whose faces were covered to vote without verification of identity; and (c) discrepancies between voters’ signatures in voter’s affidavits and their signatures in the voting records, together with alleged falsification by members of the Boards of Election Inspectors to make it appear that registered voters had voted when they had not.

The Special Board rejected petitioner’s objections and ordered inclusion of the returns. On appeal, the COMELEC Second Division sustained the Special Board, dismissed petitioner’s appeal, and directed proclamation of the winning candidates. On 22 December 1988, the COMELEC En Banc affirmed and denied reconsideration. Petitioner then invoked certiorari before the Court to prevent Amanoddin’s assumption as Mayor, but proclamation had already occurred.

The Parties’ Contentions

Petitioner maintained that the Special Board and the COMELEC erred in treating the objections as insufficient to justify exclusion of the returns, because the returns were “obviously manufactured.” He argued that the irregularities he cited were reflected in the face of the election returns and their supporting documents, thus making the controversy pre-proclamation in nature and requiring summary resolution before proclamation. He thus treated the controversy as one governed by Section 243(c), rather than a matter for an election protest.

The COMELEC Second Division and the COMELEC En Banc, in sustaining the Special Board, held that the returns were not “obviously manufactured” on their face. They further held that petitioner’s allegations did not generate a pre-proclamation controversy, and that the proper remedy lay in an election contest where the issues could be ventilated and examined in detail.

Court’s Resolution: Core Issue

The Court framed the central issue as whether the questioned returns from Precincts Nos. 15 and 17 were “obviously manufactured,” such that the legality of their inclusion in the canvass presented a pre-proclamation controversy to be resolved before proclamation of the winning candidates.

Legal Basis and Reasoning

The Court first underscored that the COMELEC, both at the Second Division and En Banc levels, correctly emphasized the limited scope of pre-proclamation controversies under the Omnibus Election Code. Challenges must be directed against the Board of Canvassers and proceedings before such board. They must not be aimed at the Board of Election Inspectors or proceedings before the latter board. The Court further observed that such challenges must relate to specific election returns to which the petitioner must have made a specific verbal objection later confirmed in writing. It held that, in a pre-proclamation controversy, it is axiomatic that COMELEC is not to look beyond or behind election returns that are, on their face, regular and authentic. When resolution would require piercing the “veil” of returns that appear prima facie regular, the proper remedy is a regular election protest. The Court also stressed the public interest in speedy determination of election results, which calls for summary treatment of pre-proclamation controversies.

The Court then analyzed Section 243(c). It recognized that, as a principle, the type of issues petitioner raised could fall under pre-proclamation controversy—particularly where returns are “obviously manufactured” or “not authentic.” However, it ruled that the “obvious” character of the manufacturing must be evident from the face of the election returns themselves.

Applying this rule, the Court found that petitioner did not allege that the returns from Precincts Nos. 15 and 17 were not made or issued by the Board of Election Inspectors, nor that some unknown third party had manufactured the returns. In other words, petitioner did not claim the returns were not authentic. Rather, he effectively argued that even if the returns were genuine, they were reflective of fraud committed before or during the actions of the Boards of Election Inspectors, and that such alleged fraud should still render the returns “obviously manufactured.” The Court rejected that approach. It relied on Ututalum v. Commission on Elections, where the Court held that alleged fraud or manipulation in preparing the list of voters, or fraud by election officials in preparation, does not automatically qualify as a pre-proclamation issue; it instead belongs to an election protest. The Court reiterated the policy logic that irregularities such as fraud, vote-buying, and terrorism are proper grounds for contest, not for declaring a failure of election and disenfranchising the majority through misdeeds of a relative few.

The Court examined petitioner’s specific factual theory that alphabetical and chronological voting evidenced fraud. It agreed that apparent alphabetical and chronological sequences did not necessarily prove fraud sufficient to justify excluding the returns in a pre-proclamation proceeding. It cited earlier reasoning from the COMELEC and referenced Lucman v. Dimaporo, which had addressed the same contention raised by different parties through the same counsel. In that prior reasoning, the Court recognized that alphabetical voting could be adopted to promote orderly elections in some precincts, and the evidence was treated as ambiguous and susceptible of multiple interpretations. Because pre-proclamation proceedings do not permit extensive evaluation that would require “looking beyond” facial regularity, the presumption of regularity in official functions became central. The Court thus refused to treat alphabetical and chronological voting as per se proof of manufacturing in the sense required by Section 243(c).

On petitioner’s allegations regarding illiterate voters and the claimed improper writing of names by assistants, the Court held that the complaints assumed that such assistance or conduct was necessarily unlawful. It noted the COMELEC observation that the Omnibus Election Code did not specify a clear procedure for recording votes cast by illiterate voters in the precise manner alleged by petitioner. It also pointed out that the evid

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